Eye of The Beholder
by cc62827
Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the captain. A six-part story told from Mal's POV. Mal/River.
1. Chapter 1: Zoe

**Title: Eye of the Beholder – Zoe (1/6)**

Author: CC62827

Length: 850 Words

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Series of six short fics with a definite Mal/River bent.

Zoe was standing at the door to the bridge, shoulder propped against the opening, the suggestion of a smile that was all kinds of enigmatic tilting one corner of her mouth. She didn't turn as I came up on her, but I knew she noticed me. I wasn't taking any care to be quiet.

A garble of noise floated out of the cockpit around her and hit my ears. Half the sounds could have been nothing but gibberish, or they could have been some complex language I'd never even heard of, but I recognized the growling at least. I climbed the stairs and peered around Zoe.

Yep.

River was playing with the dinosaurs again.

"She says they get antsy if she don't give 'em enough attention," I said quietly by way of explanation even though Zoe hadn't asked for one. I didn't know if she'd seen River playing with Wash's toys in the months since his death, and I wasn't sure how she'd feel about it. Probably I knew her better than just about anyone, but something like this could go either way.

I was relieved that her voice, when she answered, was fond. And maybe a touch this side of wistful. "He loved those little figures." Her eyes stayed fixed on River. "I'm glad she gets some enjoyment from them."

It didn't seem like the kind of statement that needed an answer, so I kept my mouth shut and carved out a spot for my shoulder opposite Zoe's to join in the watching. River didn't give any indication she knew we existed, much less trouble herself to interrupt her play and tell us to quit staring at her. We stood like cigar store Indians for a handful of minutes before a yellowish looking lizard with spines up and down his back let out a cry I figured had to be his death knell.

Something in the sound must have struck Zoe. Her eyes flickered, and the smile melted away. She straightened up with a headshake. "I need to get to the kitchen. It's my night to cook."

If I hadn't been me and she hadn't been her, I might have put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Instead, I gave her a bare nod.

(_Are you ok?)_

And got one in return.

(_Holding up, Sir)_.

As she turned away, her gaze landed on the back of the pilot's chair. It had been re-covered, but no matter how many times River or I sat in it, it would always belong to Wash. It would always be the place he died. Zoe had taken two steps down when River spoke. She used lilting English this time instead of dinosaur.

"The one who fired the spear that hit him came in the room after I closed the blast doors."

River's words froze Zoe so solid, I wondered if her heart was still beating. I understood the reaction. I felt about as pole axed as she looked. Before I could decide on a Captainish course of action to take, River's sing-song voice continued.

"All the other ones, I killed fast. One cut, one move, and dead. Didn't have time for anything else. But that one I sliced across the middle. I turned his innards turn into outards for Wash, the way Bogan would have." She held up a red plastic dinosaur I could only assume was named Bogan. Then she went back to playing just like she'd never stopped.

I tried to keep my eyes from goggling out of their sockets when Zoe and I looked at one another. Goggling eyes aren't an inspiring look for the person who's supposed to be in charge. Beyond that, though, I was at a loss. What could you say to something like that? The words my brain settled on were pretty much the definition of not the right thing, but they were straight from the heart.

"It's good knowing she was historically accurate."

Zoe was shaking her head in such a way as to make me think she might not have been paying attention to what I said. Imagine that.

"I don't know whether to be appreciative or horrified." A frown creased her forehead. "Sir, are you ever—afraid—of her."

I followed Zoe's gaze into the cockpit, "Bogan" looked to have eviscerated the bigger spiny figurine and from the noises River was making, was just sitting down to enjoy his lunch. My answer, when I gave it, didn't require any careful consideration and didn't leave any room for argument. It, also, was straight from the heart.

"No."

There was another beat of silence, and then Zoe accepted my answer for the order it was with another firm nod. I watched her walk away before I ducked into the cockpit. "There's going to be severe unpleasantness unfold in this room if you're wasting time playing instead of working on the nav. data for us to land on Stax tomorrow, Little Albatross."


	2. Chapter 2: Kaylee

**Title: Eye of the Beholder – Kaylee (2/6)**

Author: CC62827

Length: 2,638 Words

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Series of six short fics with a definite Mal/River bent.

* * *

Once upon a time, I didn't just believe in the presence of an almighty, I _knew_ it was there. Then once upon a slightly later time, I _knew _it wasn't. Now, once upon the present time, I pretty much choose not to think about it one way or the t'other, and mostly that suits my subconscious just fine. Days like today, though, I have to admit to leaning a little on the side of belief.

I was getting paid to fish.

It could have been sheer blind luck, or it could have been God's attempt to make slight amends for some of the wrongs of the 'verse. Either way, I wasn't complaining.

The first leg of the job had gone smooth as silk. River landed us on Stax with the gentle touch of a musician laying a bow across new fiddle strings, and when we delivered the cargo—100,000 glass honey jars—to the buyer, they'd been pleased to find all their merchandise in the condition they paid to receive it.

"_We've been bottling and selling honey to the Core planets for near to a decade," John Becraft told me, looking into the crates and taking note of the unbroken condition of his jars. In the background, I could hear shouts as Zoe and Jayne supervised the unloading of the rest of the merchandise with the help of some of John's hands, but for the moment Becraft and I were alone in Serenity's belly. He continued. "The fancy in the core planets, they'll pay twice the price if it comes to them in glass jars with glass spinners to dip it with, and we've not got silica enough to make the glass. So we buy these damn bottles from Trier and bring 'em here. It's a pain in the tuckus, and that's no lie. Between getting them through the solar winds, storms, and geomagnetic clouds that give us our fine weather, then breaking atmo to land, we usually lose three quarters of the order to shattering. But it's what the fancy wants, so it's what we do." _

_I shrugged and flashed a smile. There was something about the man I liked, something that reminded me, I guess, of home. But like or not, it was never a good idea to relax and consider a job done until you had cash in hand. "To each their own, I reckon. Whatever the case, y'all have plenty of jars to fill this time around. We lost one case to a clumsy gorilla on my crew, but other than that, you'll find them all in fine condition. As to the payment, you can deduct—"_

_Becraft tossed a heavy brown satchel over the top of an open crate. I caught it instinctively with a grunt that cut off my words and raised my eyebrows when I got a feel for the heft of the bag. "Not that I've ever been known to turn down a tip, but by the weight of this I'd say you're over paying by around 50 percent." _

"_Not over paying. Your crew brought in enough jars to last me three honeying seasons. That means you've either got a friend in the business of making interstellar weather predictions, or you're damn skilled. Don't matter to me which one it is. I'll have a quarter of these jars filled and ready to go inside a week. If you'd like the contract to take them to my dealer in Tamil for me, it's yours. That bag has your full payment for bringing me the jars and one quarter of what I'll give you to deliver four rounds of them." _

_I managed to keep my jaw from hitting the floor, but it was a near miss. Tamil was the agriculture hub of this section of space and as close to a core planet as you could get and still find green things growing in patches bigger than a postage stamp. It was a risk to be sure, considering that the planet was a might more civilized than we were comfortable with since Miranda, but the money. It would take a better man than me to walk away from that kind of cold, hard cash. Before I could open my mouth to agree, Becraft interrupted._

"_You can spend the week thinking about it. Move your ship out to one of my fallow fields, take in some air, do a spot of fishing, and avail yourself of my camp cook. Bottling gets finished and you decide you don't want the load, you can just consider the week vacation as part of payment for bringing in my shipment in good condition." Becraft finished by sticking out his hand._

_I shook it enthusiastically. "You have yourself a deal, Mr. Becraft. Now lets get the rest of this off-loaded." I turned to go check on Zoe and see how the delivery was going, but my mind was on my pilot. I couldn't wait to see how she reacted to the feel of clover under her bare toes. _

And now here we were. River's reaction hadn't disappointed one bit. After a few cautious steps—she was still a core girl at heart and more accustomed to glass towers than blades of grass—she'd let out a delighted whoop and taken up a twirling dance through the field that kicked up dandelion puffs and sent them whirling around her in a cloud that was as magical a thing as I'd ever seen. One by one she pulled us all into the middle of it and had everyone twirling with her before we knew she was doing it, even her cranky old captain.

We all of us but her were half-staggering with dizziness when the spinning stopped. The clover field spread halfway from here to eternity. Smack in the middle of it, a treeline marked the banks of rock-bottom creek filled with clear water and teeming with fish. Best I could tell, the creek snaked off into infinity. Becraft had claimed it was as close to paradise as you could get without making the acquaintance of the almighty, and seeing it first hand, I had to wonder if he was right. There was no such thing as perfection, though, and he'd given me a few warnings to heed, which I passed on to my crew in my best Captain-y voice before they could break for the oasis.

"I know you all are looking forward to the rest, but keep in mind we're guests here. Whatever we take off our boat, we take back on with it. The bees are sturdy, but you never know what might upset their balance. If you unwrap a protein bar, make sure the wrapper goes in your pocket not on the ground."

I waited and got nods all around for my trouble.

"Second, you're welcome to swim if you've such a mind, but keep a sharp look out for the blue rocks when you step. Anyplace they have an edge is razor sharp."

"And the green ones'll turn us all into orange polka dot horned toads—c'mon, c'mon. The morning's half gone already. You keep yapping, we'll miss all the gorram fish." Jayne's voice was impatient, muscles bulging under the weight of borrowed fishing rods and tackle boxes.

I shot him a look and he fell into sullen silence. Behind me, River chanted. "Jayne got in trouble, Jayne got in trouble."

Jayne glowered around me at her. "Little crazy, I'll turn you into a horned toad you don't shut that mouth."

Kaylee giggled before she could stop herself. "Jayne you seem real preoccupied with these horny toad things."

"I'm not—"

"Enough." As much fun as riling Jayne was, he happened to be carrying a rod with my name on it, and he wasn't wrong about the time of day. "Toads you don't have to worry about, but snakes you do. For the most part they shy away from people, but if you see a pile of rocks or hollowed out tree trunk, don't go poking your noses in it."

We fished the morning away, then cooked our catch for lunch. The afternoon sun cast a sleepy spell over the field, and with full bellies, we were all relaxing in our own way. Jayne was snoring on a blanket on the grass. A few feet away, shooting him dirty looks when he got too loud, Inara was doing some sort of fancy weaving thing with long thread loops attached to a frame.

Zoe and Simon were talking softly about something—I didn't know or care what—and little Kaylee had found herself a big flat rock to stretch out on beside the water. The sun made dappled patterns over her where it slipped through the cracks in the leaves overhead.

I was slumped down in a low wood chair, head lolled back. Best I could tell between swimming and dancing, River had managed to tucker herself out as well. She'd taken the spot at the foot of my chair leg and leaned her head on my knee. When she sat down, I'd offered her a blanket to lie on in the sun, but she just shook her head and grinned.

"Pilot. Have to stay beside the Captain." Then her eyes closed and her breathing deepened with sleep.

That sounded perfectly reasonable to my sun addled brain, and she clearly wasn't uncomfortable, so I grunted and went back to relaxing myself. I didn't sleep, but I let my eyes drift to slits and enjoyed the quiet. I thought Kaylee was napping until Simon stood up and she broke the silence, calling out softly to him. "I'm pretty sure this rock is big enough for two if you want to share."

He glanced over at River and smiled when he saw her sleeping. I raised my hand to wave him off when he looked a question at me.

(_Do you want me to make her move?)_

I shook my head.

(_Leave her be. She's fine.)_

Simon gave me a half nod, turned and started across the grass toward Kaylee. He hadn't had time to take more than a step when a warm wind rustled through the trees. The branches over Kaylee shivered. The snake that fell out of them was at least four feet long, fat and black with mottled brown marking.

It didn't land beside Kaylee. It landed on her.

Time stopped for a second that felt longer than it was, and I had a crazy flashback to the shudder that went through the cockpit when the Reever spear pinned Wash to the chair. Then Kaylee was screaming. I lurched forward, to do what I don't know. Everyone else was moving, too, and Simon yelled, "Kaylee—!" But none of it mattered. The snake reared back, showing a mouth lined with bright white. It was going to strike her. Becraft's words flashed through my brain.

"_One last thing you got to keep in mind above anything else--the Cotton Vipers. They'll do their level best to stay away from you, but if you or your crew happen to stumble on one, you stay still as can be and let it go on it's way. They're a cowardly snake that's a fact, but if they bite you it's fatal. Not occasionally. Not sometimes. All the time. You remember those three things, and you'll find Stax to be as close to paradise as you can get without having to meet your Maker."_

Then he told me what the Cotton Vipers looked like.

Three, maybe four feet long.

Big bodied, fat for their length.

Black with mottled brown markings.

Fatal. Every. Time.

Kaylee was going to die, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

The rock caught the snake mid-strike. It smashed into the black, diamond-shaped head with a wet sounding crack. The viper collapsed into a boneless pile on Kaylee's chest before my brain had a chance to process what had happened. Instinct made me turn my head. River was standing beside me, relaxed and alert. She was holding two more rocks in her other hand. In a flash, I understood what happened. Then I was up and along with the rest of the crew rushing toward Kaylee. She was sobbing now, clutching Simon. He'd pushed the snake off of her and gathered her up in his arms.

"It just came out of nowhere," she whimpered into his chest. "It was going to bite me. I know it was going to bite me. And then—I don't know what then." She pulled away and looked up at Simon, shivering. "What happened to it? It just—died." Her voice was ragged.

Over her shoulder, Simon met my eyes. He looked as confused as Kaylee sounded. "You probably scared it to death, screaming like that."

Kaylee was shaking her head. "No there was—"

She broke off when River loosened her grip on the other two rocks. The sound they made hitting the ground was unnaturally loud in the sudden silence and drew everyone's attention.

"I—didn't have a choice," she said, eyes roiling a little, finally landing on me. She looked at her crew, almost pleading. It made something in my chest squeeze in a not-at-all-comfortable way. "_Agkistrodon piscivorus_, a species of semi-aquatic pit viper usually found in or near water, especially slow-moving lakes or streams. Genetic errors during the terraforming process left it with venom of unusually high-toxicity on agricutlure planets Stax, Ramos, LMX6, and Cayo Loco—"

She broke off and looked at Kaylee. "I didn't mean to kill it, but I didn't have a choice. I just—"

Whatever else she had to say wasn't meant to be heard right then, because instead of going on, she whirled on her heel and ran back toward Serenity.

"River—" Simon's voice was strained. He sent Kaylee a sympathetic look, then started ot pull away from her.

"No, I'll go. You stay with Kaylee. I conjure she'll want to—wash up—and won't want to do it alone." I swiveled my head. "The rest of you see to cleaning up and getting our gear back to the ship. Everyone pitch in, and make sure nothing gets left behind." No one moved for a heartbeat, so I barked, "Jayne, get moving." That broke whatever spell was holding them frozen, and they got to work.

Simon sent me a grateful look and stepped away from Kaylee. "I'll get a towel," he said.

I turned to go after River, but Kaylee's voice interrupted me.

"Captain," Kaylee sounded like she was pulling herself together, but something in her tone still wasn't quite right. "Tell River—um—thank you." I nodded and started to go, but she spoke again. "She was sleepin' Captain, wasn't she? I mean, to throw a rock from that distance, and—"

She paused, biting her lip.

"What is it, Kaylee?" I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice because I knew she'd been through a powerful fright, but I wanted to check on River.

"Are you ever—afraid of her?"

I looked a Kaylee for a long moment. "No."

Her eyes dropped. "I—yeah—you're right—I shouldn't have thought—you best go see to her, then. I'm ok now, and," she took a big breath and sent me a bright Kaylee smile that almost reached her eyes. "Let River know I want her on my team next time we play ball. That was some shot."

I let my lips twist into the suggestion of a smile and nodded, satisfied with her answer. Then I turned and went after my pilot. I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I thought maybe I'd mention that her solution for the serpent in the garden was a lot more effective than the one in Shepard Book's Bible.

She'd like that.

It would give her a chance to explain to me why the concept of a talking snake was full of logistical impossibilities.

Logistical impossibilities always cheered her up, I'd had occasion to notice.


	3. Chapter 3: Jayne

**Title: Eye of the Beholder – Jayne (3/6)**

Author: CC62827

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Series of six short fics with a definite Mal/River bent.

A/N: Thank you so much for the feedback!

* * *

I was restless.

Shifting in the seat, I looked through the corner of my eye at my pilot. Usually the gorram girl couldn't sit still if you paid her to—flitting this way and that, dancing around, fiddling with knobs and dials and mysterious computerized thing-a-ma-bobs. But now, it seemed like she'd be perfectly content to have her backside fused to the co-pilot chair on a permanent kind of basis.

I shifted again. This time I twisted my back, trying to get it to crack. Nothing happened, which I have to say didn't come as any particular surprise. It was shaping up to be one of those days. Or nights. Whichever one it was. After a week planetside on Stax, where the days lasted 29 hours, I was having trouble getting myself adjusted back to Serenity's 24-hour schedule.

You wouldn't think five little hours made such a difference, but they did.

"Stop fidgeting." River's voice coming from beside me was exhasperated. "I'm trying to concentrate."

I shot her a look and raised an eyebrow. I tried to growl, but my heart wasn't really in it. "Last I checked this was still my boat, little one, and if I'm not mistaken, that gives me liscence to _shift_ if I feel the need."

"Shifting would be once. You've been _fidgeting_ at regular intervals for thirty-six minutes."

I grunted. I'd found that was the best response when she got numerical like that. Another few seconds of silence passed. When I spoke, the cantankerous was clear in my tone. I probably wasn't fit company. "What are you concentrating on, Albatross?"

She was staring out the glass, looking as far away as the stars. She answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Algebra, mostly. Polynomial equations, binary operations, a few inverse elements."

"Huh."

That was pretty much all I had to say about that, so I let the cockpit go quiet again. And I tried not to fidget. It wasn't easy. My bones ached from the pressure and gravity drive changes, and I felt itchy, cagey.

"Space lag."

I glanced at River again and nodded. "Been a long while since we were docked anywhere for that long a stretch as to cause it. Now I remember why we don't do it often."

Uncurling her legs, she stood up. "Walking will help. Come on."

"What about your algebra?"

"I can do it later—algebra's always there," River said, then reached down and grabbed my hand. I let her pull me out of the chair.

"Autopilot set?"

The look she sent me said she wasn't going to dignify that question with an answer, and I held up my hands surrender-style. "You're right. Never mind." That seemed to satisfy her, because she didn't say anything else.

There are only so many places on a ship you can go. River and I fell into step headed toward the cargo bay without talking about it. I don't know exactly when it happened that it got to where it felt natural to have her walking with me, but somewhere along the way it stopped being strange to be with her, and started being strange to be without her. I decided not to ponder that right now—my body already hurt, no since making my head sore, too—and used my mouth to distract my brain.

"You having any problem with lag?" The question sounded casual but had serious undertones. Any major change meant that River had to re-adjust what she did to block out the rest of our thoughts. She'd explained it to me just before we took off, asking me to watch her in case she went buggity at all. On Stax there were more people to block, but the open space diluted things. Back on Serenity, the images were concentrated again.

She hadn't wanted to tell Simon because he would have insisted on giving her a smoother just to be on the safe side. I understood her aversion to a medical sleep, and to the horse needles her brother came at her with in his efforts to help, so I was willing to be an aid and abetter. I'd kept a sharp watch for the first few hours and hadn't seen anything unusual, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

River tilted her head. "A little at first, but better than I expected."

"Good to know."

"Better everyday. Puzzle pieces coming together," she continued then paused, voice going wistful. "There'll still be cracks, though, even when it's finished."

I nodded slowly. "Reckon that's true enough, but I imagine you'll find that the cracks add character to the picture."

"Captain Profound."

I felt a flush creep up my neck. "Seems space lag makes me fidgety and philosophical both. All things being equal as far as nicknames go, I think I'd rather be Captain Tightpants."

We were coming up on the cargo bay when River stopped suddenly enough that if she'd been in front of me rather than by my side, I would have plowed right through her. "What are you—" I broke off when I realized she wasn't listening to me. Head tilted, she was doing the 1,000-yard stare again, but there were some differences from in the cockpit. This time she was looking at the wall instead of the stars. And the smile that spread across her face was all kinds of mischievous. I might even go so far as to say it was roguish.

"Jayne's playing with his toys in the cargo bay."

"Jayne's what?" But she wasn't listening. River grabbed my hand and threaded her fingers through mine, then took off like a shot. Either my whole self or my arm was going with her, and letting her yank my shoulder out of socket would have made all kinds of mess, so all of me followed her. The image of what kind of toys Jayne might have to play with was somewhat disturbing, though, so as River dragged me around the corner I felt compelled to call out a warning.

"Jayne, you better not be doing any deviant sexual acts in my cargo bay." Then we were there, and I felt my chin hit my chest. Sexual deviance aside, I don't think anything I could have seen would have surprised me more.

River, rather than being shocked, appeared delighted. She dropped my hand like she'd never been holding it and rushed forward. Her eyes fairly glowed with eagerness.

Jayne shot her a black look that stopped her in her tracks. "Now you just stop right there, Crazy. Don't you come no closer," he ordered.

Her face fell like a Capasin 5 out of the sky. "Can't I play, too? There's plenty to go around."

I didn't give him a chance to answer her. I'd had time to go from amazed to furious. "You have 30 seconds to get all of this _go sea wi xao bin_ out of my cargo bay and off of my cargo! I don't know what you're playing at, Jayne, but you want to make this kind of mess you do it in your own cabin."

"Aw Mal, there ain't room in my cabin," he protested. "A man needs to spread out a job like this."

"They all came from in there, and I guarantee if you do them one at a time, there's more than enough room to get the job done and not trail it over half of my ship! Get. It. Gone. Now."

"I got me a system," he replied, defiant. "It's faster this way. I clean all the bores first, then the workings, then finish up with the stocks and casing. It's like one of them—" He broke off, scratching his head and searching his brain for the word.

"Assembly lines," River eagerly filled in the blank for him.

I didn't care. They hadn't yet invented the word for how angry I was. From the looks of it, Jayne taken every single gun he owned—and that was a large number—disassembled it, and stacked it on the boxes of jarred honey in the cargo bay. Expecting thought from Jayne was like asking a man to work with no tools, but this was—

Jayne's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Right, assembly line. So don't you get all prissy about the mess, Mal. I'll be done soon enough—couple of hours at the most," he said.

"And if we happen to hit a rough patch of space in those hours?" The words came out like I was chewing gravel.

"Them boxes ain't going _anywhere_, Mal, and you know it. We tied 'em down tighter than a nun's cu—"

"Jayne!" I interrupted.

He paused with a quick glance at River. "Well, tight, then."

"You know you're right," I drawled, fighting not to grind my teeth and letting him have a minute to look superior before I changed my tone. "But what do you suppose will happen to the _glass jars _in the crates if these weapons, which you might notice _aren't_ tied down, all go flying around?" I picked up a heavy gun, not his largest by far, but still a hefty weight in my hand. "Here's an idea, how about you stand real close and let me throw this at your head. Just to test?"

Jayne blanched. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Get it cleaned up. Now. I want all of this out of here in 15 minutes or less."

"Fifteen minutes? Mal, you're crazier than Moonbrain if you think I can get all of these put together in—"

"I'm sorry, did something I said make you think I was interested in excuses? Fifteen minutes. I don't care if you have to scoop them all up, pile them in your bunk, and spend the next two years sorting out the pieces."

"Can't be done," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

"I'll help," River interjected, and then turned to me. "But we'll need at least 17 minutes."

Jayne burst into laughter. "Seventeen minutes? You think you can put all my stock together in seventeen minutes? This equipment ain't exactly simple in case you hadn't noticed. We're dealing with finely tuned mechanical weapon type things, here. It'd take you 17 minutes just on Vera."

There was a heartbeat of silence before River tilted her head. I felt a spark of alarm. The alarm grew into unease when she narrowed her eyes. And I turned down right apprehensive when she smiled, sweet as sugar, at Jayne.

"Wager?"

"Wager?" He sounded confused, not an uncommon state for him.

River rolled her eyes. "Wager, an agreement under which each bettor pledges a determined amount to the other depending on the outcome of an unsettled—"

"Gorram it, girl, I know what a wager is. I'm asking the terms."

"I get all your guns put back into working order in 17 minutes."

Jayne chortled. "Oh this is good. This is real good. What are you aiming to lose, Moonbrain? 'Cause that ain't humanly possible."

"I win, you take my clean-up shifts next week."

"And when I win? What's in it for me?"

River glanced at me and winked then looked back at Jayne. "I'll scrub out your bunk from top to bottom. You can watch while I do the hands and knees parts."

The mercenary's eyes lit up like a star gone supernova. "Bet's on!"

"No. No way are you—" The anger that welled up in me was not just unexpected, it was downright bizarre. It was directed at Jayne, but strangely at River, too.

"I've got this, Captain. Trust me."

Then she was moving.

And it was a beautiful thing to see. She was a blur of motion, almost dancing with the guns as she moved from pile to pile, never pausing to consider. No mistakes, not wasted movements, just smooth confidence, like watching an intricate ballet.

And my eyes weren't the only ones following her. Jayne stared at her, too. He looked surprised, then puzzled, then worried, and slowly, something else entered his expression. Something kind of like amazement, but more.

River finished with three minutes to spare. When she turned around, she was a little breathless and her eyes were glowing.

"Done!" She exclaimed.

Jayne didn't say anything for a long minute. His eyes went back and forth from each of his beautifully assembled guns to River and back. Then he shook his head slowly, like a man trying to wrap his brain around something and not able to do it.

River didn't seem to notice. "You've got dishes tonight, showers tomorrow, then laundry. Maybe I should make up a calendar for you, just to keep it straight," she teased. She might have gone on, but the proximity beacon went off before she could. Glancing up at me, she wrinkled her nose. "Duty calls. Too bad. I wasn't done taunting."

And then she was gone.

I figured I'd best go with her to make sure nothing was amiss, but before I followed after her, I glanced at Jayne. Had to get things clear on that end, too. "I don't want to hear any complaining. Get these put back in your bunk."

Jayne acted like he didn't hear me. He was still shaking his head. "Impossible. That should have taken hours. Flat impossible."

"Jayne, what part of get moving are you having trouble understanding?" I demanded.

This time, he looked at me. The confusion in his face actually gave me pause. When he spoke, he sounded shaken. "Mal, no one shoulda been able to do that. I know those guns better'n anybody, and I couldn't a done it, but she didn't even have to think about it."

"You've seen River do more amazing things than that," I said. Knowing he'd understand I was talking about the Reevers. "Don't see why this comes as such a shock."

"Fightin', that's one thing, but doin' that with my guns. That was—a kind of magic. That's the only explanation for it." He paused. "Does she ever scare you, Mal?"

I reached out and grabbed his shoulder hard, setting my jaw. "No. And there'll be no more talk like that, _cho se ban_? I won't have it on my ship. You go stirring up trouble, you'll find yourself in a world of discomfort mighty fast."

He looked at my face and saw how serious I was. It must have made an impression, because he nodded.

"Fine. You're the Captain." He shouldered past me and started gathering up guns. "You'd best go make sure we wasn't coming up on anything important. It'd be a damn shame if Moonbrain crashed us into an asteroid and killed us all before we get to Tamil. I got me some plans with my share of the payment."

Heading back toward the bridge sounded like an even finder idea now than when I started to follow her earlier. I didn't figure there was any worry of River crashing into anything, but I intended to have a word or two with her about the inappropriateness of her wagering away the right to watch her scrubbing the floor.

Jayne watching her all bent over like that with her backside up would—upset her brother.


	4. Chapter 4: Simon

**Title: Eye of the Beholder – Simon (4/6)**

Author: CC62827

Length: 5,500 Words

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Series of six short fics with a definite Mal/River bent.

A/N: Thank you so much for the feedback! Sorry for the long delay—this one took me bunches of rewrites to get right. I'm still not sure I love it, but I did my best. Inara is up next!

The slight scrape of metal against metal woke me from the light sleep that snuck up unbeknownst sometime in the night.

Kaylee'd oiled all the bunk hatch doors a bare week ago, but I shooed her away when she tried to mess with mine. I liked having the heads up if visitors took it in their heads to come calling. For some reason knocking seemed like a foreign concept on Serenity. Truth to tell, though, I hadn't been sleeping sound anyway.

I'd known all day that this wasn't going to be a good night.

I conjured it was the woman that done it. She was blond, with elegant hands and smooth, pinned up hair, wearing a dress of deep green fabric that made you want to reach out and pet it. We'd been walking in the market—Simon, Kaylee, River, Inara and me—the honey jars delivered without incident. Tamil was an agriculture planet, but its capital city was modern and civilized. Prices were high, but we were flush from the job and everyone was in fine spirits, stocking up on goods and pretties the likes of which we didn't run into often and usually couldn't afford when we did. Jayne had wondered off to parts best left un-contemplated with a woman on each arm and one trailing behind, and Zoe gave me a list and said she didn't mind to stay with the ship.

When Simon caught sight of the woman in green, he flat-out blanched then swayed a little on his feet. Kaylee caught his arm to steady him and sounded bewildered when she asked, "Simon?"

River was walking behind me, deep in conversation with Inara. I could tell from the prickling between my shoulder blades when they gave me unified dirty looks. I wasn't the wisest man in the 'verse, but I knew enough not to risk letting them know I'd gathered they were irritated with me. That would just be opening the door for greater unpleasantness—incessant talking she claimed wasn't lecturing from Inara, and foot stomping silence from River.

I'd had enough of the latter already today. As we were getting things ready to head to the market, River out of nowhere had announced to me that she was going to use some of her cut of the take to buy new clothes. I don't know why she thought I needed to know, but since she told me her plans, I figured that meant she wanted my opinion on the matter, so I gave it to her.

"_Seems like a foolish way to spend your earnings, if you ask me. You look fine in what you have. And it isn't like Serenity cares what you wear, Albatross."_

_River frowned at me. "I want to start dressing nicer." _

_I shrugged one shoulder. "Up to you how you use your money. If you want to play dress up, I 'spose it's your right." I paused, feeling suddenly awkward—I've never been particularly good at giving compliments, but my mouth decided it had more to say and didn't bother to ask my permission about it. "Don't rightly matter what you wear, anyway, Little One. Clothes aren't going to change a thing." _

Instead of being flattered, River's face was downright stricken. She turned on her heel and walked away. She'd had a bee in her britches the rest of the day, ignoring me whenever she crossed my path and hiding for the most part in Inara's shuttle.

For about the 20,000th time, I reviewed my words and still didn't see anything wrong with what I'd said. It was true. She could wear a burlap sack, and it wouldn't make her hair any less soft and shiny, the bones of her face and wrists any less fine. Kaylee'd had it right that first day in the med lab—River Tam was a real beauty. Being able to stop noticing that would have made the knot of tension that had taken up residence over the past few weeks low in my belly much less of an inconvenience, and that was a fact.

Still, even though she wasn't talking to me or walking with me, it was good to have her close again. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone as long a stretch without River at least flitting in and out of my orbit on occasion with a friendly wave, incomprehensible statement, or casual contact.

When Simon stopped all sudden like, starring at the blond woman like he'd seen a ghost, my immediate concern had been for my pilot. Instinct told me that if something affected her brother like that, it would be hard on her, too. I wasn't wrong.

When I turned around River was frozen still as a statue, face paler than milk. I reached out to take hold of her, but she blinked and moved before I could. Color came back to her cheeks in a rush, and she scuttled forward, shouldering past me to her brother.

"It's not her. Simon, it's not her," she said urgently.

Either her words, her tone, or a combination thereof snapped Simon out of his trance right quick, and he looked down at his sister. He was still shaken, but you could see him attempting a rally. He was doing it for her, I conjured.

"I know, Mei Mei." He rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath. "It just startled me."

Kaylee was craning her neck over Simon's shoulder, holding one of his hands tight in both of hers. "I don't understand. Who are we talkin' about, and who isn't she?"

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then Simon forced a distracted smile at her. "There was a woman ahead of us who, from behind, looked quite a bit like our mother."

"Oh, Simon, Honey, I'm so sorry." Kaylee's voice was soft and sympathetic. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to step forward, wrap an arm around Simon's waist, and hug him into her side. I couldn't help but notice how grateful the doctor seemed for the comfort, and I felt a moment of gladness for both of them. I didn't always understand how that peculiar relationship worked—a circumstance I was most of the time appreciative of—but it was nice on occasion to see that it in fact did.

Inara came forward, too, and made motherly clucking sounds in the back of her throat as she guided the couple toward a table, chatting brightly. I knew what she was about; it was her natural inclination to help soothe hurt and upset when she saw it. And she'd always been protective of Simon and Kaylee, more so in the months since Miranda.

River had melted back away from them. Odds were Inara'd thought to include her in the comforting, but River had a way of disappearing when she wanted to without letting anyone know she was gone. Her face was blank, but her eyes were dim. One arm folded across her stomach, cupping her opposite elbow, gave the illusion that she was holding herself together. When she looked at me, I could see the hurt deep down where she'd been trying to hide it.

I was beside her before I even realized I was moving. With my arm around her shoulders, her head fit in the cup of my chest like two halves of a whole. It was a warm afternoon, but she was trembling a little. We stood without saying anything for a few long seconds, watching Inara and Kaylee encourage Simon to look at items on the table a few feet away.

"I'm sorry, little one," I finally said.

"Not your fault," she replied, voice wooden. "You didn't abandon your daughter and disown your son. Besides, it hurts Simon more than me. No one ever told him love was conditional."

"I conjure it hurts you a fair piece, too, but that wasn't what I was apologizing for," I said, giving her a small squeeze. She looked up at me, and an edge of curiosity broke the eerie stillness that had stolen over her face. "Words aren't my particular forte, but I'm sorry that I bungled them and hurt your feelings today. Believe it or not, I was trying to give you a compliment."

She looked skeptical for a minute, then a tentative smile tilted the corner of her lips. "_That_ was you trying to be complimentary?" She asked.

It was a good thing my feelings didn't bruise easy, or the incredulity in her voice would have bunged them up a good bit. Instead of taking offense, for no sensible reason, I felt a wave of relief. It had me smiling and in the mood to tease. "I never claimed to be the poetical type, Albatross. I'm more of a guns and semi-criminal acts man."

"Would you perchance like the opportunity to rephrase your compliment?" She mimicked my unexpected playfulness when she asked the question and raised one downright cocky eyebrow. Then, when I didn't answer right off, she tapped the toe of her boot, light and pert against the side of my ankle. "Well?"

I cleared my throat and ignored the heat that stole up the tops of my ears. "You wouldn't rather just change the subject and get on with the shopping?"

She shook her head. Once. In such a way as to communicate that she wasn't going to be changing her mind anytime soon.

I've always believed in choosing my battles, and it was plain to see this wasn't one I was going to win. I blew out a heavy sigh, but when I spoke my tongue got tangled around itself. "What I was trying to say—that is, what I meant—well—" I broke off and frowned. Had my shirt collar been digging into my neck this way when we left Serenity? I didn't recollect that it had. "The fact is—you could wear a burlap sack or a fancy dress and you'd still look very—fine—in it—the sack, I mean. Very—pretty—you might say."

If the ground had seen fit to open a gaping pit in front of me at that moment, I would have been grateful. But it didn't, which was probably a good thing since Jayne would think he was in charge then, and Zoe would have to shoot him, and—and why hadn't River said anything yet? I'd gotten the gorram compliment out, hadn't I? I felt like a bug in a jar, the way she was staring at me.

"Well?" I finally demanded.

There was another heartbeat of silence. "You're right. You should stick to criminal acts."

But she was smiling when she said it.

The day got better after that. No one mentioned the incident. But when she thought no body was watching, I could still see shadows in River's eyes. And in the corner of my vision, I caught a flash of green every now and again. Whenever I did, I noticed River was carefully looking the other way. By the time we finished, we had goods enough to last us a long stretch in deep space without coming near civilization.

Besides shopping for the necessary supplies, River had disappeared with Inara and Kaylee into shops filled with silks and scarves and bits of womanly frippery more times than I could count, leaving Simon and me to act as pack mules until we declared our backs full-up.

Instead of stopping then, they'd just arranged for delivery service to Serenity. They drug it out as long as they could, but eventually the ladies declared themselves shopped out, and we headed for friendlier territory

A busy day of that sort leaves you with a contented kind of weariness in your bones. Jayne had staggered his way back to the ship, announcing to one an all with an incoherent smile that he would be in his bunk and to wake him up when we were out of the world. Apparently he'd spent himself entirely in both coin and energy entertaining his new friends.

Zoe's indulgence with her share of the take had been a book, not the vid screen kind, either, but a real glue-and-paper concoction the likes of which they'd used on Earth-That-Was. It was about a fellow named Holmes, who apparently Wash used to talk about often when he was trying to puzzle something out during one of their arguments. Seemed a strange thing to want to remember, but her eyes lit up when I put the package in her hand. Her quiet request to have the cockpit to herself to read after take-off wasn't something I'd even have considered denying.

Kaylee and Simon seemed to be turning in 15 minutes earlier every night than they had the last, so it didn't surprise me none when they disappeared just after dinner. I would have liked a few minutes to talk to River, but between take-off, programming the autopilot, then offering to help Inara with the dishes, she was never alone for more than a second. And by the time she'd finished with all that, I found myself otherwise occupied—tightening a loose panel in the cargo bay, answering a wave from a man on Genoa with a line on some cargo, and the like.

I admitted defeat and retreated to my bunk. My mind wasn't ready to turn in yet, but my body was complaining too loudly to ignore. Once I got bedded down, I hadn't expected to sleep, but I guess I had since the opening door had roused me. A glance at the red numbers on the wall-mounted digital clock beside my bunk told me she'd made it longer than normal.

The sound of bare feet on my ladder drew my attention, and I sat up, twisting my back in a stretch when I reached for my shirt. It was half buttoned by the time she finished her climb down. A look at her face told me that, thought the nightmares hadn't been any kind of good, they hadn't been as bad as they could have.

The first time River invaded my bunk was about a week after we left Miranda. I'd woken from a dead sleep to find her standing beside me, staring like she expected lasers to shoot out of her eye sockets and burn me to a crisp. Her face had been a waxen mask, and if I didn't know it was impossible, I'd have said every muscle in her body was locked hard as concrete. Speech was a world beyond her ability, but I managed to get her up the ladder and into the lounge. I'd thought to wake her brother, considering he had better training in the treatment of catatonic younger siblings that I had, but I decided against it when halfway down the hall to the Kaylee's bunk, I'd heard sounds of a distinctly intimate nature.

It had occurred to me then that River wasn't quite as far-gone as I thought if, in her state, she'd realized that Simon might appreciate being not interrupted at the moment and sought me out instead. I decided to give handling the situation myself a try. It had taken me hours to get her relaxed enough to go back to her cabin and climb under the blankets again, but I'd done it.

I don't know for certain, but I'm as close to positive as a man can get that she'd come to me with all of her nightmares after that. Maybe she'd sensed a kindred spirit in me—sleep had turned traitor on me more than once, too. Or maybe Simon and Kaylee hadn't worn out all of their new yet, and she hadn't had a choice.

Either way, it wouldn't be exaggerating to say a pattern had formed.

Just as she always did, River glided to my side on silent feet. I frowned when I realized that, instead of the blank slate her eyes normally reflected, this time they showed the glint of tears. I brushed saltwater tracks off of her cheeks without commenting on the abnormality, and then I was gently coaxing her back up the ladder.

Both of us bare foot, we didn't make a sound as we slipped into the lounge. I sank into a worn sofa scant seconds before River curled into my lap. She was shivering, which was another change. Usually she was still as death and relaxed a millimeter at a time over an agonizing stretch of minutes. I didn't comment on that, either.

We didn't talk at all, in point of fact. We almost never did. The whish of the flats of my hands tracing broad whorls I hoped were soothing over the fabric of her back and the rumble of Serenity's engine provided a background of white noise to the silence. Gradually, the familiar quiet worked its usual magic in spite of the differences in River's circumstance. In about half an hour, she relaxed enough to move away from my side and reach down.

Her handing me the silver-plated, horsehair brush signaled that speech was once again permissible.

"Do you want to talk about it, Albatross?" I asked, voice low as I started working the brush through the snarls in her hair.

She didn't answer at first, but finally she whispered. "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."

My heart went out to her. I wasn't surprised—I'd expected something along those lines as soon as Simon explained the cause of his upset—but it didn't make hearing that River was hurting over the reminder any less affecting. I kept the brush strokes long and steady while I worked on how to answer her.

Finally, I settled on telling the truth. "It's a hard thing, realizing that Gods and mothers both will let you down from time to time, Little One."

There didn't seem much to say after that, but I could almost hear River working through dilemmas and considerations that likes of which I probably couldn't understand, much less help with solving, in her head. The seconds stretched into minutes, and my brain relaxed itself into the soothing repetition of the brush strokes. My reverie was so deep, it took me a second to come out of it when I noticed movement in the doorway.

Chest bare, wearing a pair of elastic waist sleeping britches, Simon stared at us and blinked, like he expected the scene to disappear, or at least change upon closer inspection. When he finally realized it wasn't going to, he spoke.

"What's going on here?"

All things considered, I'd have expected him to sound a might more—angry. But his voice was all confusion and perplexity, like a man trying to wake up but not able to fist the grit from his eyes. I couldn't find hide nor hair of fury anywhere in it. Then again, I'd been known to misread his emotions on occasion.

It seemed like Simon had asked the question of me, though, which meant that probably he'd be expecting a response of some sort. Before I could formulate one—I needed to get it just right as someone in the medical profession most likely knew all sorts of painful, secretive ways to kill a man—River took care of the chore. She wasn't maybe as tactful as I'd have been, but she got her message across.

"None of your business."

Simon's eyes goggled clear out of his head and nearly bounced themselves on the floor. "_Excuse me?" _

I decided about then it was time for me to add to the discussion. "River was having a bad dream and needed a little company, Doctor," I said, careful to keep my voice flat so he wouldn't mistakenly think I was in the mood for conversation.

Confusion collapsed into understanding in a blink then went right back to where it started the next second. "A bad—why didn't you come to me, River?"

I could have answered that, and maybe given him a piece of my mind about the it being more than a little not right for Simon to forget about his sister every damn time the notion to avail himself of Kaylee's charms took hold of him, but River's hand on my knee stopped me. My blood didn't reduce from boiling, but I kept my mouth shut and let her have her way.

"Boogie men and bad dreams and things that go bump in the night vanquish faster with two. Have to have a partner to cover your flank."

He might not have understood the flank part, but Simon didn't have any trouble following River's meaning.

"Mei-mei, you know you can come to me anytime to need help with a nightmare. I can give you something to help you sleep, or I can sit with you. Whatever you need. Just because I'm with Kaylee doesn't mean—"

River cut him off with a shake of her head. "I have what I need. Two by two." She stood up without waiting for an answer and twisted her head toward me. I was surprised to see her looking almost—shy. It was a foolish notion—shy wasn't an expression often graced the face of River Tam—but that was what it felt like to me, nonetheless.

"Thank you for helping me, Captain. I'll be fine handling Serenity by myself in the morning so you can get some rest."

The way she looked down through her eyelashes at me even though she was standing and I was sitting caused a familiar tightening low in my stomach. "Appreciate the offer, but I expect I'll be about near to the normal time. Wouldn't want to sleep away my share of breakfast."

"If you do, I'll save you some of mine," she wrinkled her nose. "It's Jayne's day anyway. Likely won't want to eat it myself."

I felt my face crease into a smile. "Get yourself back to your bunk before your toes freeze off," I ordered with a shake of my head. She turned to go, glancing at Simon as she did. Best I could tell, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself and settled for blinking owlishly at her. Seemed like a fine course of action to me. Myself, I hadn't intended to say anything else, but the words slipped out before I could think better of them.

"River, you know where I am if you have anymore troubles tonight."

The shy look ghosted over her face again when she nodded. "Aye, aye, Captain."

I realized dimly that Simon and me both were watching River as she slipped away. She'd no sooner disappeared, though, than I felt the weight of her brother's eyes land on me. When I turned my attention to him, he was staring at me like I was an interesting sort of bug in a jar. "I think I must have missed something. Did we slip through a black hole into an alternate 'verse when I wasn't looking?"

"Not that I recall," I answered mildly, "although I don't suppose you would have noticed, occupied as you were."

Simon didn't appear to be listening. He'd started pacing back and forth, and since he seemed well occupied with that, I figured I could take my leave. I stifled a yawn as I stood up, thinking to edge past him. The movement caught his attention, though, and he froze, pinning me with a look.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To bed. Might suggest you do the same."

Simon was shaking his head. "Oh no. You're not going anywhere."

My temper fired a might, but my heart wasn't really in it when I said, "Haven't we at various points talked about the inadvisability of you giving orders on my boat?"

"Fine. No orders—how about questions? Are those allowed?"

"I suppose so, assuming you're fast with them. In case it had slipped your notice, this is an hour usually reserved for sleeping."

"Well here's a start—why didn't you come get _me_ to help River? The fact that I'm her brother aside, I'm also her doctor. She has the potential to become violent. And if that happened, she could hurt not just you—" The look he gave me when he paused for breath made it clear he wouldn't shed a tear at this moment were that to happen. "—but herself, as well."

Clamping down on my temper, I reminded myself that Simon Tam might be a pompous _hu dan_ at times, but he did love his sister and kept my voice even. "Doctor, I'll say this only once, and only because you're her brother. I would not now nor ever let anything happen to your sister. She came to me for help, and I gave it to her. If ever I'd needed your medical know how, you weren't but a yell away. I'd advise you not to question how I go about tending to River again."

The doctor was starring at me again, this time with an even stranger expression on his face than a minute ago. I was running out of patience with trying to interpret his looks and decided it would be best for his continued good health if I ended the conversation. River wouldn't like it if I threw her brother out of the air lock, and I was going to be too tired tomorrow as it was to deal with her cranky.

Before I could shoulder past him, Simon was talking again. This time his words were slow and careful and not really a question. "You—care about her."

I snorted and threw my hands up in the air. "Of all the—girl's my pilot. A member of my crew."

"No. Well—yes—but what I mean is, you really care about her. I'm not sure—" He took a deep breath and held up a hand to keep me from answering then seemed to change the subject a little abrupt like. "Before Miranda, she'd have nightmares three or four times a week."

"It's less than that now, but right after—I'd say it was maybe that often."

Simon was shaking his head. "I can't believe I didn't know. I should have. I guess I just thought—"

"That they disappeared like a rabbit into a magician's hat when the secret stopped burning through her brain?" I interrupted, not able to keep the irritation out of my voice. "I don't think so. What happened is you _didn't_ think. At all."

If I'd expected an argument, I would have been disappointed. Simon sank onto the cough River and I had been using and shoved his hands through his hair. "You're right. I was so wrapped up with," he paused and swallowed heavily, sending me a sideways glance, "well, you know. I just didn't consider what a change in my—sleeping arrangements—would mean for River."

It was damn hard to stay irritated when a man was so determined to take responsibility for his mistakes. "You can't be expected to live your whole life around River's bad dreams, Son. It's right that you have some privacy."

Simon shivered. "God, if she'd come in while I was with Kaylee—"

"Well, I imagine River knows enough about the birds and the bees not to be overly shocked by a man and a woman lying together."

"No, that's not it." He looked up at me, and I could see anguish in his face. "The way she looks when she has those dreams—her face frozen and blank, her eyes empty. I wouldn't want Kaylee to see her that way. She looks like she could—hurt—you and never feel a moment of regret. No hesitation at all."

"Doctor—"

"Captain, we haven't always seen eye to eye, but since we've been on your ship, you've looked out for River and me. I guess you could say you're a close a thing to a—father—we have anymore."

"Whoa, now. I'm not anyone's—" The thought of myself as a paternal figure in Simon's life was odd, but not anywhere in the same galaxy as disturbing as the consideration that River might feel the same way. That was just—before I could really get my protest out, though, Simon interrupted me.

"I _know_ you aren't, but still—can I tell you something?"

"Is there a way for me to stop you?"

He'd apparently slipped back into not listening to me because he plowed on like I never answered at all. Funny how that kept happening. "Sometimes, those nights, I wondered if I'd made a mistake getting River back. If she was going to—just the way she looked. I saw a shark once, in a zoo on Osirus. I was just a boy, and it gave me nightmares for a long while. When I'd wake up with her standing by my bed, her eyes sometimes looked like that. I don't think I just didn't think. I think, maybe, I didn't _want_ to think about it anymore. I didn't _want_ her to be able to come to me anymore. What kind of person does that make me? What kind of brother?"

I blew out a heavy sigh. "It doesn't make you anything. You've carried a heavy weight for your sister for a long time now. It's clear she's getting better, and it's no crime that you'd hope for something you found hard to handle to go away first."

"You've been—helping her—since Miranda? With the nightmares, I mean. And they are getting less?"

"I can't say for certain, but if the number you gave is right, and if she's coming to me with all that she has, then they're getting much better. We just sit out here and wait for them to pass. They do, and I take her back to her cabin."

"But you haven't ever had to give her a tranquilizer or a smoother?" He sounded incredulous then slipped back into his Doctor speech pattern. "That in itself shows remarkable improvement. Before Miranda, I always had to sedate her," he trailed off then looked uncomfortable. "And the—expression—that I talked about. Is it getting—better?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that without saying something that, right or not, felt like betraying an unspoken confidence between River and me. "I know the look you're talking about," I said carefully. "I've seen it, too, but not as often as I did at first."

There was a long pause. When Simon spoke, his voice was as desolate as I'd ever heard it. "Captain, does River ever frighten you? The things she could do to the crew if—"

"No," I interrupted firmly. "River confuses me regularly and amazes me a good bit of the time. But she never scares me."

"Thank you." Simon closed his eyes. When he opened them, he'd managed to tamp down whatever melancholy had come over him this odd night. "You should get some rest. I'm sure you have a full docket of mayhem and space travel tomorrow."

"That I do." I started to head for the bulkhead but paused. "Hadn't you best be getting back to your bunk? Kaylee will wonder where you got to."

Simon shook his head and his eyes clouded again. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking about—" He broke off, embarrassed, but instinct told me he'd been about to say his mother.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Why did my gorram mouth keep forgetting I was a mean, nasty old captain? "You know, I'm not particularly tired, either. Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?"

"Coffee? You want to have coffee now? With me?" His tone was doubtful.

"Didn't I just say that in plain-as-day English?" It wasn't quite a growl, but it was close.

"I—yes, you did. Coffee. That would be—"

"Stop jabbering about it and get the pot on," I interrupted with a shake of my head. "Didn't your Mama teach you dithering is rude?"

"Actually, she did." A fond smile tilted the corners of the doctor's mouth. "When I was about eight years old," he paused, awkward, "you probably don't want to hear boring stories about my childhood. Do you?"

It wasn't my imagination that he sounded a little hopeful. The things I put myself through for my crew. It was enough to make a man wish for Reavers or an Alliance gun ship on his tail. I motioned with my hand for Simon to keep talking and followed him toward the galley.

"Don't seem like there's much else in the way of entertainment options right now. Go on with the story. Provided you can make coffee while you jaw jack."


	5. Chapter 5: Inara

**Title: Eye of the Beholder – Inara (5/6)**

Author: CC62827

Length: 9,100 Words

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Mal/River.

A/N: I got this back out after some really encouraging feedback recently. In case anyone is still following this story, here is Inara's chapter. It took a whole lot of words to get there, but I think, maybe, I'm happy with it.

* * *

I woke up the next morning feeling cantankerous in the extreme, which shouldn't have come as a surprise considering I'd only gone to bed a bare four hours ago. Once the good doctor got to talking, it was harder to get him to shut up than it was to get Jayne to leave off with singing after a few glasses of Kaylee's engine whiskey. I had a list of chores as long as my forearm, though, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get anymore sleep thinking of them hanging over my head not getting done.

I rolled out of bed and made quick work of washing and dressing. A glance in the mirror made me wince a bit—I looked like a horse rode hard then put away wet—but maybe no one else would notice. I pulled on my boots and climbed the ladder. Movement caught my eye as I ducked under the bulkhead into the hallway, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Zoe coming out of her bunk.

"Morning, Sir." She paused, and then, amused asked, "Rough night?"

Gorram. So much for no one noticing. Well, Zoe always had been observant. Kept us alive more than once during the war, so I supposed I couldn't complain. "Couldn't get comfortable," I replied, which wasn't entirely a lie. The chairs in the galley didn't lend themselves to sleeping—or even to dozing—through a conversation.

"Mmm," she said, noncommittally. "I took a look at the wave from—" Zoe broke off mid-sentence. She wasn't a woman who gave much away with her expression, so when her eyes widened a click and a smile crept across her face, I surmised something of interest was going on behind me. "Well, would you look at that?" She said softly.

I turned my head and felt shock slam into me like a hit from a laser blaster.

It was River. Only, it wasn't River.

She was dressed in black from head to toe. It almost looked to be one solid suit of skintight material—the idea of which did unmentionable things to my innards—but when she moved you could see a pencil thin line of skin appear for a flash before her shirt settled against the top of her britches. And wasn't it just a foul piece of luck that little slice of skin managed to set my mind spinning in even less captain-y directions than the notion of her in a one-piece black thing had done.

I don't know exactly what I'd been expecting from her new duds, but this wasn't it. She'd done her shopping with Inara and Kaylee, though, so I suppose I wouldn't have been surprised to see her in dressed in a similar fashion to one or the t'other of them. But this was nothing the likes of which I'd ever before laid eyes. My brain couldn't rightly process it—a soft, stretchy concoction of pants that hugged tight until they hit her ankles, then belled out just a touch over feet that were cased with some sort of shiny cloth slipper and a shirt that molded to every inch of skin from throat to wrist with the exception of a shallow V at the neck. She looked half like a dancer, half like an assassin, half like a slip of a girl who ought to be tumbling around with a troupe of acrobats, and half like a woman in need of a man to run his hands down her sides and feel for himself everything the clothes were showing and hiding all at the same time.

It was that last half that I couldn't seem to keep myself from coming back to; course, that was four halves, which even I knew didn't add up to one River.

"—don't you think so, Sir?"

Zoe's voice, clearly amused and not even trying to hide it, interrupted my thoughts. I tore my gaze off River—would it be too much to hope Zoe hadn't noticed I'd been staring at her like a lecherous hump?—and raised my wrist to check, real subtle like, to make sure drool wasn't puddling on my chin. That would have had me headed toward the Special Hell for sure.

"I—huh?" I asked when I determined that I'd at least managed to keep my slobber inside my mouth. Not my most articulate moment, but I conjured it could have been a sight worse.

"I was complimenting River on her new clothes." Zoe slanted me another amused glance. "You look mighty nice, River, and it seems as though I'm not the only one to notice."

And Gorram if just when River's appearance shouldn't have been able to get any more appealing, a blush crept up her cheeks and she peeked at me through her lashes. The look hit me like a punch to the gut. I sent up a quick thanks to my maker when she turned her attention back to Zoe a flash after it landed on me.

"Thank you," she said, sounding sane and modest and womanlier than the calendar placed her. We all three fell quiet. For my part, I figured I was better off not even trying for words. It seemed like one of those times I'd be best served to know and respect my limitations. Zoe appeared to be enjoying the odd dynamic in the silent hall. Her sense of humor has never been entirely on the up and up—how else could she have managed all those years married to Wash.

River fidgeted again, and I could tell she was self-conscious. Since bad was the last thing I wanted to make her feel—I'd only just gotten back in her good graces—I mustered up some saliva and a pitiful bit of self-control. "Well, hadn't we best be heading into breakfast?" I asked with a vague gesture toward the galley.

Zoe tilted her head and sent another speculative look at River. "You know, I was going to skip today, but I think maybe I'll go down, after all."

"Hope you aren't too hungry," River replied. She paused for half a second. "Jayne's cooking. There's a 37 percent chance at least one of us will get food poisoning."

"I've always liked living on the edge," Zoe said. "Sir, you up for a little excitement this morning?"

I sent her a sharp glance. There was something about her voice—before I could decide if I needed to figure a way to remind her that I was supposed to be an authority figure on this boat, River caught my attention. The uncharacteristic nervousness was still there, but I could see her fighting to hide it. She held out one arm in a pose I suspected was meant to look gallant. "I believe I promised to escort you to breakfast, Captain."

Some of the fog of idiocy lifted from my brain. Friendly banter and vague affection were my usual weapons when dealing with my inappropriate reactions to River, and I was grateful to her for reminding me of them. I arched an eyebrow at her bravado and harrumphed her direction, hoping Zoe had the good grace to notice my performance.

"I'll do the escorting, Albatross," I said, neatly reversing the position of her arm. "If I'm going to get food poisoning and die, it would be a shame if my last act in this 'verse was to deprive you of my courtly gallantness. Or gallant courtliness, whichever you prefer."

River laughed. It was a youthful sound that usually worked wonders for snapping my libido back where it belonged. I decided not to examine why it didn't seem to have the same affect this morning and concentrated on ignoring the way her side pressed against me as we walked.

Must be lack of sleep.

Zoe was two steps in front of us when we hit the galley. To say that there was a definite reaction to the change in River her clothes had wrought would have been a gross understatement of the facts. One thing was certain, it was gratifying to note that I hadn't been the only one whose jaw hit his chest. It seemed to be the universal response of all the crew—at least the half of us who were male.

Simon looked down right pole axed. He just kept looking at her, opening his mouth, shaking his head like he was suddenly faced with one of the mysteries of the 'verse, and then snapping his lips shut again without a word coming out of them. It was a refreshing change, all things considered.

If Simon was at a loss for words, little Kaylee was the exact opposite. She heaped so much praise on River, Zoe finally interrupted to tease that maybe she'd taken up with the wrong Tam sibling. Kaylee blushed and wrinkled her nose then said, "Well, I just want her to know how pretty she looks."

Zoe's smile widened, and her eyes flicked to me. I probably would have been feeling a rush of relief that she was in the mood to let her dry wit out to play a mite—her sense of humor had been scarce since Wash's death—if I hadn't had the sudden sense she was up to no good, and that the no good was going to be aimed at me.

"Do you think River knows how pretty she looks, Sir?" Zoe asked me, the picture of innocence.

If I'd had any doubt that Zoe knew about the awkward problem I'd been having keeping my thoughts of River strictly captain-like, the mischief written clear as words on a page across her face relieved me of it. The funny thing was, I couldn't catch the barest glimpse of disapproval in her face. By all rights she should be threatening me with a litany of tortures I'd once heard her list to Wash when his eyes had lingered a little too long on the backside of a waitress at a time of the month most reasonably intelligent men knew it was best to walk softly and give a wide berth to Zoe.

"Pretty ain't the word for it," Jayne interjected with a leer. I couldn't help but notice that his eyes hadn't lifted above the tip of the V in River's shirt since she walked in the door. "Little Crazy, you might be a few bushels short of a peck in the head, but she makes up for it in the—"

"Jayne, you're going to want to not finish that sentence," I interrupted. By the sudden silence that fell around the table, I surmised that perhaps my voice had been a touch—unfriendly. Could have been worse. I could have come across the table and yanked his tongue out of his head.

For once Simon and I seemed to be in complete agreement, because he turned a matching set of militant eyes toward Jayne. "Excuse me. In case you forgot, that's my sister, and I don't appreciate—"

"Sister or not, Doc, if Crazy's going to advertise the goods like that, you can't expect a man not to notice." He paused to smirk and took a voracious bite of the protein bar he was holding. "Probably wasn't much time for courting in that school your folks sent her to; offering to help her test drive the equipment is just the neighborly thing to do."

That was it. I was going to kill him. And when I finished, the Doc could kill him again. If there was anything left. I was half out of my seat before I realized I was standing up when a sharp voice froze me and everyone else solid as stone.

"Enough!" Inara sounded as close to the edge as I'd ever heard her. I hadn't really thought about it, but it was the first she'd spoken since she'd got sight of River. If ever there was a woman who operated on an even keel, it was 'Nara. I'd managed to raise her ire more than once since I'd known her, but for the most part she kept a mask of composure in place that was Gorram hard to knock out of whack. It seemed like something had it tilted this morning, though, and that was more than a little startling. And the idea that the thing doing the tilting could be River's changed appearance was too mind boggling to consider.

Before I could really mull that idea over, Inara continued. "Can we please _pretend _to be civilized enough to eat breakfast without bloodshed?" The militant glint in her eye and the frost in her voice was so out of character, enemies seconds before, Simon, Jayne, and I exchanged glances that confirmed we all agreed this was a development best left unexplored.

There was a stretch of awkward silence, then Zoe was talking about the wave we'd gotten from Boros asking if we were of a mind to make a short passenger run. Immediately, groans went up from Jayne complaining about having extra people mucking about underfoot. Kaylee let out a shrill whoop of excitement at the same time Simon started fussing about the safety aspects of the situation.

It took me a fast minute to shift gears back into a captain-y frame of mind. Normally Zoe and I would have discussed the pros and cons of taking on civilians in private rather than bring it up undecided to the rest of the crew. She'd known good and well what she was doing, though, shifting the focus of the discussion away from River's clothes and Inara's strange behavior. Nothing got my crew up in a dander quite as quickly as the idea of passengers. Across the table, I could feel Zoe's gaze heavy on my face. In my mind, I heard her speak.

_We need to talk, Sir._

Our eyes locked, and I conveyed my silent agreement.

_I reckon we do._

Her answering nod was barely perceptible. I took that as a sign it was time to get back to some semblance of normalcy and pushed back from the table. "All of you, hush. My boat ain't a democracy. I'll make the choice as to weather or not we take on a job and let you know when I decide. Enough jaw jacking. Kaylee, I noticed a decided hiccup when we broke atmo—are there any nasty engine surprises I need to worry about headed my way?"

Kaylee stood up, looking offended. "Serenity doesn't give any nasty surprises, Captain." No matter what she said, I knew her well enough to be certain that she'd spend the rest of the day looking in every nook and cranny of the engine room just to be sure, though. A mechanic of her caliber didn't take chances. Telling her to double check would have been adding insult to injury, so I moved on to the next person I wanted on his feet and away from the breakfast table.

"Doctor, if I'm not mistaken, I believe I dropped a good portion of our payday so as you'd have an infirmary to restock. Jayne can help you carry the crates. Just tell him where they go."

"Aw, Hell, Mal—"

"Dictatorship, not a democracy." I cut Jayne off mid-complaint. He looked mutinous, but he followed Simon out of the galley. I figured the good doctor would make use of the opportunity to get a touch of revenge for the comments that came out of Jayne's mouth, and that was just fine with me.

Three down, three to go. My spirits lifted a bit at the prospect of this next one, though.

"River, get us a couple of courses charted to Boros so we can see what our options are." I paused to relish my next words—there wasn't much in the 'verse quite as appealing as River's face when she had a challenge in front of her. "The Cohen Meteor belt is between here and there and active this time of year. You think you can nav. us through that, or do we need to go around?"

River's reaction didn't disappoint. She was on her feet before I finished the sentence, looking like a kid at Christmas. "If we can go through, we'll knock days off our travel time. Of course, the trajectory of the comets could—"

I interrupted her but couldn't help the smile that spread across my face at the eagerness in her tone. "You know how excited all that talk of trajectories gets me, Albatross. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

River blushed then sent a roll of her eyes my way. She knew the finer points of plotting a course didn't exactly fascinate the rest of the world the way they did her. What she didn't know was that I was only being halfway sarcastic. Not about the trajectories—I might be lusting after a slip of a girl half my age, but I'm not sick enough to find trigonometry attractive just yet—but her expression when she set her mind to tackling a problem was another story altogether. It was equal parts relief and disappointment when she scuttled off a second later. Zoe's voice kept me from staring after River's retreating backside. I'd have to remember to thank her later.

"Why don't we take a look at the passenger bunks and see what kind of rearranging we could do to accommodate the load?" Zoe phrased it as a question, but I could hear clear as day that she was issuing a command performance. I nodded my agreement and turned, trying to think of an errand to send Inara off on, but sometime when I wasn't looking, she'd disappeared along with the rest of them.

There was a time, I would have noticed her going even if the world had been crumbling around my ears. But that time had come and gone. I turned my attention to Zoe, giving myself an excuse not to ponder that line of thought any further, and motioned her toward the hatch.

"After you."

"Right. You're feeling gallant today." She paused and tilted her head, her tone pointed. "Or was it courtly, Sir?"

I wasn't in the mood to be baited. "You want to do this here?"

Zoe held me in her steady gaze while she thought that over for half a heartbeat and shook her head. "No. I think it'll keep until we get to the passenger bunks."

I didn't bother to answer, just turned on my heel and headed to the stairs that led down to the passenger bunks. The walk was short and silent, punctuated by the comforting sounds of Serenity running through her paces—the whoosh of the climate control system, the clatter of our boots on metal stairs. As they always have a way of doing, those everyday sounds calmed me, and my mood evened out a bit.

"We do some rearranging, we could find room for eight, maybe ten passengers," I said. Maybe it had been an excuse to talk in private, but I really did want to chat about the logistics of taking on passengers. I figured there wasn't a reason not to do it now. It had been months, and the Alliance hadn't made any threatening moves in our direction. However she'd intended to start the conversation, I guess I surprised Zoe enough that she lost her train of thought.

"Ten?" She asked, incredulous. "In two rooms? Sir, that's packing them in a might close, don't you think?"

I shook my head. "Not two rooms. Five."

"That's some interesting math you're doing, Sir, considering we only have six passenger bunks in total, and two of them are occupied, one's out of commission, and—"

"River and Simon aren't passengers anymore. It's high time they moved into crew quarters with the rest of us." Besides, if we did take on this passenger run, I didn't want River sleeping a ship away from me and right beside the strangers. I was happy to leave that part unsaid, though.

"A fine notion, but where do you plan to find the room in crew quarters?" Zoe asked.

"Kaylee and Simon have been playing musical beds long enough. I don't know who they think they're fooling. He's spent every night for the last month in her bunk, anyway. So I reckon it won't exactly be a hardship on them."

Zoe nodded and smiled. "That's true. Kaylee'd probably find it downright convenient."

A wry grin spread across my face in response. My mechanic had never been particularly shy about her—well—particulars. I'd been fair amazed that she'd made it this long pretending they were taking things slow.

"We've got the coin now we can spare to have Kaylee fix up the climate control system in bay four, so that'll free up another."

"That makes four," Zoe replied. "How're you thinking of emptying the other bunk?"

I knew she was talking about River's room. The other choice, bay one, had been Shephard Book's. It wasn't on the table. It might be foolish, but none of us were ready for someone else to take over his quarters just yet. It was something Zoe and I hadn't talked about, but we both knew it all the same. I set my jaw and met Zoe's eyes, keeping my gaze steady and flat.

"I was thinking of giving River the second shuttle. Might be a bit of a challenge what with us still using it for crew transport, but I think we could work it."

There was a beat of silence, and something that looked like surprise moved behind Zoe's eyes. Just like that, I knew what she'd been thinking. And I found her line of thought insulting in the extreme.

"You got something you want to say to me, you'd better get it out in the open right now," I demanded. "I don't know what kind of opinion you hold of me, but I'd like to think you know I'm a better man than to move that girl into my bunk. River is a member of my crew, and that's where our relationsh—uh—_association_ stops."

"Why?"

"I—huh?" I shook my head as if to clear it. Of all the things for her to say, that wasn't one of them I'd been expecting.

Now, she was looking amused. "I'll admit, it might be a bit soon to move her into your bunk, but its clear that you and River are more than just crew. Why would you want to try to stop that _relationship_?"

Of course, she had to go and emphasize the gorram "R" word. Women. Disturbing as that was, it was the other that had me baffled. "Hang on just a damn minute here. I thought you brought me down here to chew me up one side and down the other over the way I was acting toward River?"

"The way you were—" Zoe broke off, laughing. "Sir, if I'd handpicked someone to pair you off with, I couldn't have chosen better than River Tam."

I blinked owlishly, which Zoe correctly took as an invitation to explain what in the ballocks of Hephaestus she was talking about. A slight smile tilted the corners of her mouth, and just like that I could tell she was thinking of Wash.

"You two are more alike than peas in a pod. Now in some cases, that might be a bad thing. But I have eyes. Believe it or not, best I can tell you're good for one another."

Shaking my head, I protested. "Me and River? Alike? You've gone buggity. She's a little girl raised in the core with her every want met before she could speak it. I'm a rough-edged old man with—"

Zoe interrupted me with a shake of her head. "Don't matter your background—you're the same where it counts. Even more than you and I are. And as for River's age, there's nothing immoral or illegal about a few years between you. Least, not since her last birthday."

My lungs deflated in a whoosh. I could feel myself shaking my head, but even as I did it, something inside my chest had—shifted. Zoe was, in not even a round about sort of way, telling me she approved. Not even giving a blessing, more like—

"Wait just a minute. If you're telling me you think I should—" I still wasn't quite able to say the words, so I waved a hand and hoped she understood, "—well then what's all this 'Sir, we need to talk,' you were sending my way?"

All traces of amusement slid down her face like an ice planet off a hot sidewalk. "Permission to speak freely, Sir?"

I nearly choked on a snort of laughter—when had Zoe ever needed permission to speak freely—but nodded.

"I think before you make any decisions in regards to River, you're obliged to make sure things are square with Inara."

I opened my mouth to argue, but it seemed I was fresh out of pithy protests. That tended to happen when I knew Zoe was right, Gorram it. My jaws clamped shut with a snap that echoed through my teeth and into Serenity's walls, and I nodded curtly in Zoe's direction. Then I turned on my heel and walked—stomped—away.

Fine. Shiny. I needed to talk to Inara. That was just _shiny_. Because history has shown that Inara and I are always so good at talking about things. At least being the captain meant never having to act gracious when your first mate tells you something you don't want to know.

Inara's shuttle was between me and the cockpit. I could have stopped by right then. It was a shame I'd remembered a pretty long list of chores in front of me that needed to be accomplished before we let strangers in Serenity's door. A damned shame.

We were 12 hours away from Boros—River true to form floated us through the Cohen belt without a hiccup. Zoe wandered up to the bridge and complimented her on the smooth ride.

River reached out and touched the controls lightly. "Wash helped me. I was a leaf on the wind." She hadn't been in the cockpit that day and couldn't have heard him say it—leastways, not with her ears—but with River I knew that didn't matter. I was curious how Zoe would react to hearing his last words repeated. It surprised me some when instead of being unsettled or angry, she locked eyes with River and nodded.

"Nobody flew like my mister," Zoe said with a smile that I was happy to notice got a little less wistful everyday.

River smiled back. "Nobody," she agreed.

Zoe nodded again and left a few seconds later. Some might say my intuitiveness is bit hampered by the fact of being a male, but I could still tell something important had just happened, something had shifted between the women.

"Respect." River's voice interrupted my thoughts. I looked at her, tilting my head in question, and she obliged me with an explanation. "The important thing that happened. It was respect."

I thought about that for a second. "I reckon it was."

Beside me, River frowned. "Surprised me. That's not usual."

"Shouldn't come as a surprise. Zoe respecting you, considering you an equal, well, it's a rare and valuable thing, but you've earned it as much as anyone ever has, Albatross. And as for you not expecting it," I paused and chose my words with greater care than normal because it seemed like a good opportunity to say something I'd been turning over in my mind since I walked away from Zoe in the passenger quarters like flames were nipping at my backside. "Sometimes, that's just the way things are. They come up on you without you noticing so as you don't really know when or how they started. You just have to accept them once you realize—"

I broke off when it occurred to me that it sounded like I was making a speech. Or babbling. And that River might not understand that I was babbling about something other than what we were talking about. Or, even worse—or maybe better, that she _might_ actually understand that the point of my babbling wasn't only about what we were talking about. I didn't usually babble, so I wasn't sure of all the rules associated with—

Across from me, River blinked and tilted her head with a snort. "It'll make a mighty mess if your brain explodes in here."

I—huh? I wasn't sure if I'd just thought that or said it out loud. It didn't seem to matter either way, because River continued, lips curving up into her open, merry smile, the one that came out when she was right on the edge of a laugh.

"If your thoughts get any faster, I'm afraid your head won't be able to hold them all. Then POOF, gray matter everywhere and suddenly the Captain won't have to duck to go through Serenity's trap doors anymore."

She giggled when I raised my eyebrow. Maybe I needed to work on my threatening look a bit.

"You reading my mind, Albatross?" And sweet baby Jesus I hoped she wasn't. _I_ didn't even know what to make of the mess my thoughts were in right then, and I was the one thinking them.

"Nope. It's spinning too fast for me to get on without getting dizzy. Besides, you didn't give me a ticket for the ride."

I let out a quick breath and brought a hand to the back of my neck, rubbing absently and forcing the suggestion of a smile in River's direction as I sank into my seat opposite her. "Wouldn't be worth waiting in line for, anyway," I said by way of acknowledging that I understood she hadn't been reading without permission. I didn't really think she would have, anyway, but I understood that sometimes thoughts were loud enough she couldn't help it.

A small frown furrowed her brow, and I could tell she was searching for words. Normal conversation was coming easier to her, but it was still a struggle at times. And since it seemed I usually understood her whenever she spoke in her natural hybrid of metaphors, she mostly let herself settle down and not work for traditional words if they gave her a hard time coming when it was just the two of us. Responding to the struggle I sensed in her, I reached out a steadying hand and laid it on River's knee, trying not to notice how soft the cotton of her pants was or the fact that I could feel the heat of her skin under it. "You ok, Albatross?"

She nodded and straightened her shoulders, concentration evident in her posture. "Your thoughts are always worth the wait, Captain. If you have something on your mind and need to talk about it, I want to listen. I want to—help—you. If you need it. The way you help me."

Before I could think to stop myself, I reached out and ran the back of my other hand down a long strand of her hair. "You help me everyday, Darlin', just by being here."

There was a long pause, and then I felt the tentative slide of River's hand over mine. And just like that I found myself fallen into one of those moments that changes everything. Or doesn't, depending on how you treat it. If I moved my hand away, if I slid my eyes to the controls and made a joke about her earning her keep, our fingers together right now would turn into just another one of the thousand small touches we'd shared in the last months. And that would be not an entirely bad thing. What River and I had right now was hard to put a name to, sure, but it wasn't something I'd be willing to squander for lack of careful consideration.

But changing didn't mean losing.

I fought a 100-year's war inside myself in the space of a heartbeat, and then made a decision. Time to fish or cut bait. Holding her gaze, I slowly turned my hand over so our palms were flat against one another. Our eyes stayed locked while I threaded our fingers. Hers were deep enough to drown a man, and inside I was gasping for air, willing her to understand what I didn't know how to put into words.

I needed to make sure she understood that this touch wasn't nothing, _wasn't_ just one of thousands. I'd always been better with doing than telling. For a second, I thought about asking her to read my mind so I didn't have to explain. That wasn't fair, though, so I opened my mouth to try to make some semblance of sense out of my thoughts with my tongue, but the press of her fingertips to my lips stopped me in my tracks. It had been longer than I care to admit since anyone of the feminine persuasion had touched my mouth, but my memory wasn't so foggy that I didn't recognize the caress in the contact.

When had my little River learned that?

"Superfluous," she said, interrupting my thoughts. "Exceeding what is sufficient. Unnecessary. Not needed."

The knots passing for my innards loosened, and I felt a wave of relief. She understood. Without me explaining. It was enough to make me want to get down on my knees and thank my maker. Course, then I would have had to let go of her hand, not something I was interested in doing just yet. I nodded agreement, and her fingertips slipped away from my lips, bumping down my chin and finally falling away from my face at the base of my throat.

I'm not sure when I started cataloguing River's smiles—the fact that I did it at all was a little too disturbing for me to examine closely—but the one she was sending my way this time was something entirely new. New and good. Very, very good. Yeah. Right then, saying anything else would definitely have been suplefurtative. Or whatever that word she said was.

A soft ding—the autopilot marking the halfway point to our destination—drew our attention back to the controls. Our hands slipped apart as we both got down to the business of flying Serenity, but that was all right. Even a man who's on the obtuse side of intuitive knows a beginning when he sees one.

My palms were sweaty.

My guts were knotted.

And I could feel a vein that before now I didn't even know I had bulging out the side of my head.

But the worst thing was, I'd lost all control of my Gorram arm.

I'd been telling it to rise up and knock for the last six minutes, but it dangled at my side limp and useless as it had been until the field medic picked out all the shrapnel from the nerve cluster that saved my life in the fight with the Operative. Which was a whole different kind of foolish, anyway, because since when had I ever knocked before I barged into Inara's shuttle, anyway? It was my Gorram boat. I went where I pleased, when I pleased, when I was on it.

Too bad my arm seemed to have forgotten that.

I was concentrating so intently on the door in front of me, that I didn't even realize I wasn't alone until she was close enough for me to feel her breath in my ear when she spoke.

"It's my shuttle, but if the door's broken you're still responsible for fixing it. It's in my lease agreement."

"Gahargh!" I yelped and jumped backward, arms spinning to keep me from landing on my backside. "Holy Mother of—you can't go sneaking up on a man like that, 'Nara!"

She looked at me skeptically, and I decided it was a damn shame that a chunk of something didn't decide to fly off the ship right about now. Nothing important—just a spare part that would send us lurching and throw her off balance a bit. The airs Inara had about her were at times intimid—_irritating_. Captains don't get intimidated by members of their crew. Even gorgeous, female ones.

I opened my mouth to tell Inara I wanted to talk to her, but before I could get the words formulated, she interrupted me. "You'd better come into my shuttle," she said with a wave of her hand and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Then Inara raised an imperious eyebrow and the hint of sad I thought I saw disappeared. "I assume you want to talk about River?"

I figured she wasn't looking for an answer when she swept past me and into the shuttle. Well that was just—first Zoe, now Inara. Was I the only one on the gorram boat who _didn't _know I was having impure thoughts about my pilot? Probably best not to think about that right now. Especially considering the fact that Inara seem quite so in favor of the idea as Zoe had. Or maybe I was reading her wrong. I'd be the first to admit the depths of her mind were far beyond my spectrum of understanding. I let that cheer me up a bit as I followed 'Nara through the door.

The shuttle wasn't quite as fancied up as it had been during Inara's first span on Serenity, but there appeared to be more fripperies than had been in evidence last time I was in it. Of course, I could be mistaken considering that the décor hadn't exactly been foremost on my mind during that visit.

We hadn't been in the air long. Even now, our wounds weren't closed by a long measure, but then they'd still been gaping and raw. River was at the helm, and I was in my bunk getting quietly drunk. I wasn't quite there yet when I ran out of Kaylee's engine whiskey. Since I could still feel my legs well enough to navigate the ladder, it was clear I hadn't brought enough of it down with me in the first place. My plan to top off the flask I was carrying derailed when I got close to the engine room and heard a moaning whine that didn't come from anything mechanical.

"_Gorram doctor always playing havoc with my best plans," I grumbled under my breath as I headed toward the passenger dorms. There was a bottle of communion wine Shepherd Book hadn't taken with him, and it felt like as fine a time as any to toast in his honor. _

"_That's not very nice." Inara's voice was just this side of melodious and loose enough that even my foggy brain picked up on the fact that she seemed to have been doing some drinking of her own._

"_Well, what he's doing to my mechanic doesn't sound particularly polite, either. And it's getting in the way of me and my refill." I gestured with my flask. "At least he doesn't seem the type to take to long about it. Odds are I won't have time to sober up before they're finished." _

'_Nara raised an eyebrow. I was a little surprised not to be particularly moved by it. A few months ago Inara's eyebrows were a frequent feature in some of my more creative fantasies. "I have some sake in my shuttle, if you're not in the mood to wait," she said. Even drunk, I could hear the purr in her voice._

_I thought about that for a second. "Don't know as I'm particularly fit company right now." I replied. "I tend to get a might impolite when I've been drinking. Wouldn't want to cause offense." I softened the refusal with as much of a smile as I could muster. It wasn't much, but it was the best I could do at the time. Maybe I'd wander up to the cockpit, check on Albatross after I got the wine. She'd probably have something cryptic and confusing to say about me getting drunk off a nonexistent savior's transubstantiated blood that I could somehow take for approval. At the very least, the chairs there were comfortable enough to pass out in if I didn't make it back to my bunk._

_I was half turned around to amble away when I felt Inara's soft hands slide around my waist. Her breath ghosted across the back of my neck when she spoke. My first thought was to wonder if she had any idea how much squeezing my middle made my cracked ribs ache. Then her squeezing drifted lower and she whispered against my ear, "I didn't ask you to be polite."_

_If I'd been a better man, I would have lifted her hands away from me and walked her back to her shuttle, but I've never claimed to be a particularly good man. I took what she was offering. _

_The engine wine had put a slight haze over my memories of that night, but even though the edges were a little fuzzy here and there, what I'd left with was the knowledge that I'd just had perfect sex. I'd wanted Inara from the moment I laid eyes on her. I hadn't always treated her like I should. I hadn't always taken the care of her I should. But I'd wanted her. Lying with her that night, her movements were choreographed and smooth. Every attention I paid to her, she gave back in kind ten times over. It took me a bit to understand what was happening, but if I moved in a way she didn't expect or deem correct, she seduced me back to the where she wanted and picked up just where she left off when I started trying to interject my own ideas into the process. It was like we were doing a ballroom dance together, all the steps planned timed just right for maximum effect. _

_Maybe things would have been different if I'd had a few more of my faculties about me and she'd had a few less of hers, but I didn't think so. When she came, first on my tongue, then again under my fingertips while I moved inside her, there was no sweat, no tangled hair, no pained expression as she tried desperately to find what she was looking for, just gasps and smooth sounds that let me know I'd done exactly the right thing. Then it was my turn, and she milked my orgasm from me with inner muscles I didn't even know women had. I couldn't have held back if I'd wanted to._

_Yup, It was perfect. _

_And I had not the slightest desire to ever do it again. _

_I'd woken up to Inara beside the bed, handing me a China cup of tea made of porcelain so thin I had to resist the urge to hold it up to the light and see if I could read through it. _

"_Oh," I said, thrown a little by the courtesy of the gesture. Inara was lots of things to me, but courteous wasn't usually one of them. "Appreciate it." I sipped and couldn't hold back a grimace. _

_Tension I hadn't even realized was there in her face broke up at that, and Inara laughed lightly. "It's better for you than coffee." _

_Right because drinking liquid sticks with a sand chaser was good for your system. Before I could think of something diplomatic to say, Inara turned away, starring at the wall. "I—Mal—maybe this isn't the best time to talk about this, but I've been up for awhile and thinking."_

_I had to close my eyes. In my experience, Inara thinking usually didn't bode well for me. I gave a moment of thanks to whoever it is that watches out for idiot men who think with their neither regions that whatever conversation Inara wanted to have didn't seem to require my participation. _

"_Last night, I lost control." Inara said, finally. _

_I blinked. "I—really?" _

_She glanced at me, scathing. "Could you please be serious for just a minute, Mal?" When she paused I decided that meant she wanted an answer. Since my choices for a response were something along the lines of an incredulous "that was you losing control," or nodding, I went with a nod. It seemed like I made the right choice when she went back to talking._

"_It's—dangerous—for a companion to lose control like that. It—well—suffice it to say, I have some things to think about. I know what you want, but you have to understand, being a companion isn't just an—occupation—it's my life. It's who I am. I don't know if that's something I can give up for you. I don't want to hurt you, Mal, but I have to be honest with you."_

_Clearly by her silence she was expecting me to say something. Gorram it. What kind of irony was it that I'd welcome a Reaver attack right about now? And why hadn't I just walked her to her shuttle? Why did I always have to be such a Gorram—best not to think about what kind of a bastard sleeping with Inara when I knew my feelings had changed made me. I wondered if there was another Special Hell Book hadn't told me about, and I was in it right now. I set down the cup of dirt water and cleared my throat. "Inara, you know I care about you—"_

_She cut me off before I could finish and laid a hand on my chest. "Please Mal, don't. Don't make this any harder. Could we just, forget this happened? Not talk about it right now? I need some time to decide if I can be what you need. Please?"_

_I looked her up and down, and then did what any sane man in my position would do. I agreed. "I think that's for the best." _

"—you like some tea?" Inara's voice pulled me back to the present, and I had to shake myself a little to jostle out a response.

"That'd be nice, 'Nara."

She turned to her teapots, and I took a ginger seat on a red cushioned bench. Since in my experience bad news doesn't improve with time, I decided to quite stalling and open my mouth. I started with a sentence I'd had good luck using with women in the past. "You were right."

She swiveled her head, looking momentarily amused. "You're going to have to be more specific. I'm right about a lot of things."

I cleared my throat. Ok I'd left myself open for that. "About me wanting to talk to you about River," I clarified.

There was a heartbeat of silence while Inara stared hard into her teacups. "Do you know I left the shuttle to get you coffee the night we slept together?"

I shook my head a little, feeling all of the sudden like I had a case of mental whiplash. "What? Not to be impolite, but that's not entirely what you'd call germane to the conversa—"

"River was in the hall," Inara interrupted me. "She was sitting outside your bunk. I could tell she'd been crying."

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. River had known—

"Sit down, Mal." Inara's voice was velvet over steel, and I hadn't even realized I was standing up. Against my instincts, I made the muscles in my thighs relax enough to lower me back to the bench. I told 'Nara to keep talking by way of a curt nod.

"I thought she was hurt, or maybe having a nightmare and had wandered out of her room." Inara's laugh sounded harsh in the closed shuttle. "I ran to her, but she pulled away from me. That's the first time River ever pulled away from me."

"I asked her what I could do. When she looked up at me, I thought I was going to drown in her eyes, they were so big." Inara wasn't even making a pretense of working on the tea anymore, and I wanted to yell at her to get on with the story. I restrained myself, but it was a near thing. "She said, 'Tell me you love him.' She was talking about you, of course."

Somehow, Inara had ended up sitting on the bench beside me, but I barely noticed her. I wanted to tear out my own throat. River had known. She'd known. And how could she not have? Even then, I'd understood that we were—connected. It started the day the world ended on Mr. Universe's moon. When the blast doors opened, and she and I had been the only ones standing. That's when everything changed. And I'd _known_ it had changed. But I'd still—

"I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of, 'I do, Mei Mei, of course I do.' You see, I'd known she had a _tendre _for you for, well, awhile. I don't know what else I would have said, but all at once my head was full of pictures. Pictures of you and I together. What our life would be like. There were—children—and a house. Kaylee and Simon were in some of them, and Zoe. Then there was one of you older. Your hair was white. I didn't recognize the woman beside you as myself at first with mine short and gray. But the biggest image, the one that I kept flashing back to, was me at the training house. I was giving back my license. I was—well—it doesn't matter."

Inara was right. It didn't matter. Because even if she'd offered it to me on a silver platter, I wouldn't have taken the life she was describing.

"I didn't realize River put the pictures in my head until my mind cleared, and there she was, starring up at me. She looked—sane—but there was more there, underneath. Her voice was flat when she talked, but, her eyes were—they kept flickering from shattered to cold to—I don't even have the words to describe it. 'Tell me you'll give him what he needs. Tell me you'll make him happy. Promise me.' She was—not exactly begging—but very intense."

It registered that Inara was ringing her hands. I felt a flash of sympathy and reached out to stop her, but I flinched back when I realized her hands were like ice. "Inara—" I started.

"I tried to tell her I would. But I just—couldn't say anything. I—ran away." Her words were halting, stilted. "Her eyes were so—she frightened me. The idea of what she might have done if I answered the wrong way frightened me." Inara blew out a shaky sigh. "Anyway, I just left and came back to the shuttle. You were asleep. I watched you for a while, thought about things, thought about the things River had put in my head. And I realized I didn't know if I _could_ do that for you. Part of me still wants to think I couldn't—commit—to you at the time because River was doing something to my mind to keep me from it, but I know myself well enough to know that wasn't it, at least, not all of it."

Silence stretched long and empty. "You and I, it was never going to work, Inara. That morning, asking me to forget about it, that was the right thing." I finally said.

Inara rolled her eyes. "I understand. Looking back on it, I don't think River was quite stable at the time. I don't know what she would have done if I'd—"

"River has nothing to do with it," I cut her off feeling a flash of temper. "You did the right thing because you knew in your heart, even if your mind wasn't ready to admit it yet, that you and I and whatever future you saw wasn't the way things were going to turn out, wasn't right for us."

"Mal," Inara's tone slipped into the mix of patronizing wisdom that never failed to infuriate me. "I've seen how you look at River. And I understand. She's very beautiful. And I'm sure the—dangerous—aspect of her character is something that attracts you, too. No matter what our differences, I've always considered you to be a reasonably intelligent man—"

"Do you know what River would have done if you'd 'answered wrong,' 'Nara?" I kept my voice carefully even, but I'd had enough of listening to all the reasons why something wasn't right with my pilot. Not many people had ever accused me of being entirely sane, either.

"No, and that's the point," Inara nodded, fervent. "I _love_ River. I do. It's not her fault, what they did to her, but no one really knows what she's capable—"

"_I_ know," I growled, temper flaring at the implication she was making. "Nothing. River would have done _nothing_."

"Mal—"

"I care about you, Inara, and I'm glad we're in agreement that there are some things we can't give up for each other. The road we've taken has had its share of bumps, but I'd like to think it's led to friendship."

"Of course," Inara said. "That's why I'm trying to make sure you understand the consequences of this—flirtation—with River."

"I understand perfectly," I said as I stood up and walked toward the exit. And what do you know; my arm worked fit as a fiddle when I lifted it up and hit the panel that opened the door.

Inara rushed after me, hissing in a whisper since the door was open. "I don't think you—_Mal_—just stop for a minute. Doesn't she frighten you even a little?"

I didn't have to pause, but I did. "No, Inara. She makes me happy."

And I left.


End file.
